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Virtual 3-Ring Binders

I had a teacher who wanted some good websites to review multiplication facts using the Smartboard. That’s easy, but getting the sites to the students when the teacher doesn’t have a website to which we can add links is an issue. We don’t want to type in web addresses. So we needed a quick way to whip up a web site with links to the games, preferably a webpage with a short URL that can be easily typed in.

I decided to try LiveBinder. With a free account you can create online virtual 3-ring binders in which you store websites and documents, organized by tabs, and even subtabs if needed. The websites are embedded, meaning they can all be accessed within the binder. However a link is provided to navigate to the site if preferred.

For sharing, you can use the provided direct link to your binder, or the code to embed on your website an icon for your binder. You can also easily access a binder by typing in the web address “LiveBinders.com” and then using the search box to locate a binder by author’s name or keyword. So to get the students to my multiplication binder, I can have them navigate to livebinders.com (that’s easy enough) and search by my last name to locate the multiplication game binder I’ve created.

There’s a convenient bookmarking button that you can install in your browser to use to add sites to a binder with just a couple clicks. You can also upload files/documents to include in your binder. You can set your binders as private or public. Private binders can be shared with a link and passkey, which you create. You can add text to a page in your binder, such as if you need to provide some directions on how to use the site embedded below. The Help explains all the features and how to use them.

They have a nice selection of Featured Binders that you can browse or search. There I found Ipads in Schools, a great binder that has tabs across the top for For Administrators, For Students, For Teachers etc. Each tab has a submenu for further organization.